Sweet red cabbage

A kind of sweet polish cabbage, but without the piggy in the middle, is always needed at this time of year. A big pot of it was forever on the go in our house when I was growing up, most likely, back then, to go with yet more ham. These days I leave out the bacon and replace it with some sun-dried tomatoes to give it that extra sweet kick.



























1 small red cabbage
2 large garlic cloves
1 red onion
7 sun-dried tomatoes
30g butter
1 apple such as empire
1 cinnamon stick
1 tsp of ground cinnamon
200mlml red wine vinegar such as cabernet sauvignon
3 tbsp brown sugar
Sea salt and black pepper

 
1. Remove any rough outer leaves from the red cabbage and trim the rough stalk from the bottom. Finely shred the remaining cabbage with a sharp knife.
2. Peel and finely chop the garlic and red onion. Roughly chop the sun-dried tomatoes.
3. Peel, core and grate the apple and heat the butter in a large non-stick pan over a medium heat. Before it has even melted you can add everything to the pot as there is little else to do here except sweat it all down.
4. Add the cabbage, onion, apple, garlic, tomatoes, spices, red wine vinegar, sugar, salt and pepper to the pan.
5. Give it a couple of stirs, once the butter begins to melt turn the heat right down to very low and cover with a lid. Forget about it for 45-1 hour, only stirring from time to time. It’s done when all of the vegetables have sweated down and the cabbage has a soft sweet flavour.